Azuki Ice-cream

Initially, I was intent to make a kind of sweet azuki bean cream, thinking it might have been innovative; then, browsing on internet I found out azuki is one of the main ingredients of traditional Japanese sweet dishes. Actually, this type of cream is called “anko”, and is normally used in several typical desserts, like “mochi”, which captured my attention insomuch as I will try to make it soon. However, today I just want to share my version of a cold azuki bean cream. 😀

Method:
Soak the azuki beans overnight, and cook them for at least two hours with as much water as needed. Let them cool, adding more water as necessary, so to make them quite soft. Once they look really soft, you can turn the fire off, drain them and let them cool down in fresh water for a hour, to eliminate the characteristic bean taste they have. Drain them properly and blend them with a mixer for a couple of minutes; in the meanwhile, add little by little three spoons of water, the dates and the millet malt. Put the cream in a tupperware with a pinch of malt syrup on the top.
Your cream should look like the pic below:
It’s great to eat spoonful after spoonful, as a spread cream on bread or as a stuffing for any cake (like Japanese people usually do 🙂 )! Its taste is peculiar, mine was extremely sweet, maybe ’cause I add some dates to the recipe. In case you prefer a mild taste, don’t add dates to the mixture, and put a pinch of chilli pepper powder instead ;-), or a banana, or simply nothing!
Put the cream in the frezer, and 3 hours later it’ll look like a smooth ice-cream with a very soft heart!
In case you are really patient, and you can wait two hours more, you’ll get obtain a proper ice-cream ;-).
Have a nice evening! Ciao 😀